TechTarget’s SearchERP site recently had a great article from Alan R. Earls about the eight main reasons that organizations fail when trying to migrate ERP to the cloud. The article is titled “Migrating ERP to the cloud: 8 reasons for failure,” and its guidance and tips are useful – IF your organization even has the option of migrating to a SaaS version of your ERP.
The reality, however, is that the legacy ERP solutions many organizations are utilizing don’t offer SaaS-enabled versions today. Or if they do, the cloud-enabled version doesn’t have feature parity with the dekstop version of the software. Even in the best-case scenario where the SaaS version is capable, many organizations have already invested too heavily in customizations to the legacy version to make a migration feasible. We’ve written in the past about the reasons why organizations can’t abandon their legacy software, and the same holds true for many potential ERP migrations.
A lot of organizations still use highly customized legacy applications and have invested significant resources into these apps that are still providing core business-critical functionality for their business. While cloud environments often provide robust features and capabilities, some orgs may not be in a position to abandon their legacy applications as the cost and effort to migrate to new SaaS-based offerings is too great.
Luckily, every organization has an easy option for avoiding the typical pitfalls of migrating their ERP to the cloud while still being able to access every feature and customization they have today. And this option is available regardless of whether their ERP solution has been SaaS enabled.
Virtual Application Delivery (VAD) enables organizations that are using customized legacy applications to be able to continue using these apps while at the same time providing a modern way to deliver the application to any device with a cloud SaaS feel.
Using Virtual App Delivery platforms like Cameyo, organizations can give end-users access any legacy application through any modern web browser connection. This means legacy applications not designed to run on mobile clients or non-Windows devices can efficiently run on any device, regardless of OS, from the browser. It effectively SaaS-enables any legacy Windows or internal web app without the need to refactor or redevelop the application.
Example – Delivering Windows-only ERP to Chromebooks
When Nordward decided to transition to Chrome OS, it hit a snag.
“We also needed a way to provide our people with access to the Windows applications they rely on to do their jobs – most importantly our ERP system – from their Chrome devices,” said Christian Ahlin, Group Head of IT at Nordward.
Together with reseller Online Partner, Sweden’s leading Google solutions specialist, Nordward put together a migration strategy that would enable the company to take advantage of the speed, security, and manageability of Chrome OS without interrupting access to their business-critical Windows apps.
“The most critical need was the ability to deliver our Windows-based ERP system, VismaBusiness, to all of our employees even though they are now utilizing Chrome OS devices,” said Ahlin. “This is the system we use for our purchasing, warehousing, logistics, sales, and finance – so I can’t think of anything more ‘business critical’ than that.”
Nordward selected Cameyo’s Virtual App Delivery platform, enabling them to simply and securely deliver their ERP software to all of their employees’ Chrome OS devices. Cameyo enables Nordward employees to access the full desktop version of the Windows application on their Chrome OS devices through the browser. Not only does this remove the need for the software to be installed and managed on each device, but because it’s the same version of the software that everyone is used to (just running in the browser), there is nothing new for users to learn.
“Cameyo played a critical role in enabling our transition to Chrome Enterprise,” said Ahlin. “Without the ability to provide access to our Windows ERP software on Chrome OS devices, we simply would not have been able to make the switch.”
You can check out the complete Nordward case study here.
Example – Enabling ISVs to Deliver their Apps as SaaS, with no Redevelopment
A few years ago Tático ERP – a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform in Brazil – was seeing a trend that more organizations wanted to utilize their software on a variety of platforms, especially Apple devices. At the time, it’s ERP suite ran only on Windows, and needed to be physically installed – there was no web-enabled option.
“This became a serious limiting factor for us when speaking with potential customers,” said Henrique Netzka, CEO of Tatico. “We needed to be able to sell our platform to any company, regardless of the types of devices their employees used – not just Windows-only organizations. So we set out to web-enable our platform to better serve a greater number of organizations.”
Like many ISVs, Tatico assumed that redevelopment of their software was the only option. But they soon faced a common roadblock.
“It would have taken $2M to redevelop our suite for the web, and it would have taken at least 18 months,” said Netzka. “It simply didn’t make economic sense.”
In addition to the time and cost involved, Tatico was also concerned about ensuring feature parity for the web version.
“Often times with these redevelopment projects, companies are forced to make compromises in the functionality of the web version in order to get it to market faster,” said Netzka. “We are not wiling to compromise the user experience of our customers, so it was very important to us that they be able to access 100% of the features and functionality of the suite, from the web.”
Ultimately Tatico decided to take a different approach. It selected Cameyo and was able to quickly and easily give all of their current and future customers access to the desktop version of the Tatico suite, from any type of device, directly from the browser. Zero redevelopment required.
“When we first saw Cameyo in action, we quickly realized that our users wouldn’t have to download, install, or manage anything in order to use our suite,” said Netzka. “It was like a dream come true. Our users would get the same exact experience as the installed version of the software, but on any device, without having to install anything.”
Want to learn more about how ISV’s can SaaS-enable their product overnight with no redevelopment? Check out Cameyo for ISVs here. Or read the complete Tatico ERP case study here.
And regardless of whether you’re an organization looking to migrate your ERP to the cloud or an ISV that needs to SaaS-enable your service, you can get a customized demo of Cameyo here.